Arc Thrift Store, Foothills Mall owners agree on relocation package

Feb. 7, 2013

Changes are coming to the Foothills Mall. All of the outlying buildings will be demolished to make room for a different configuration of businesses. That doesn't mean all of the businesses will be gone. Some will be relocated to other buildings on the mall property. Arc Thrift Store and Ross Dress for Less, two of the businesses that will be impacted, are shown January 5, 2013. / Rich Abrahamson/The Coloradoan

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After months of negotiations, it appears Arc Thrift Store will remain in Fort Collins, but not at Foothills Mall.

Mall owners have agreed to help Arc Thrift Store relocate its Fort Collins store within the city, Arc President and CEO Lloyd Lewis announced Thursday.

Arc, which opened at The Shops at Foothills in 2000, has not wanted to leave its current location even as Alberta Development Partners gets ready to redevelop the mall and its surrounding properties.

The thrift store, which does 180,000 transactions a year in Fort Collins, has not identified a potential relocation site yet, Lewis said. The Midtown corridor has several large vacant buildings including the old Toys “R” Us site and the former Jo-Ann Fabric store across the street from the mall.

Lewis declined to be specific about the value of the relocation package but said “it’s a relocation reimbursement that makes sense for us.”

Arc and mall owners have been negotiating a potential relocation for months, since Alberta said in September the 30,000-square-foot store did not fit in with plans for the new higher-end shopping center in Midtown Fort Collins.

The news set off a firestorm of support for the thrift store that employes people with disabilities, maintains a $900,000 annual payroll and pays about $100,000 in city sales taxes.

Don Provost, founder of Alberta Development Partners, said they were excited they had worked out a mutually beneficial agreement that maintains Arc’s presence in Fort Collins. “We are still working with them to secure an alternative location, but I think we can all agree that this is wonderful news for the entire community.”